Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

9rules and Building Evolving Communities
October 14, 2007

A few of the folks I “hang with” online are/were involved in the 9rules network. I am not a member, but I had tried to become one at one point. I’ve been following the recent actions of the network with some interest, and thought I would save my thoughts for later as they may be relevant for other communities in which I am involved and have influence. Some background on the current issue is probably in order.

Essentially, many people had joined the network for the purpose of being affiliated with other bloggers who created great content. Their goal was to enrich the web. These folks chose to participate in the network insofar as they posted new, quality content to their own blogs, which were syndicated specifically to the rest of the members. Although the network powers-that-be had created a site for interaction among members, these folks never saw participation in those forums as a requirement to their membership, simply their continued contribution of quality blog content.

The Cheese Stands Alone
October 13, 2007

When we used to travel as kids, the entertainment in the car consisted of counting cows out the window, playing the “I’m going on a trip” memory game, looking at the maps stuffed into the pocket in back of the driver’s seat, and as a special treat, those “magic ink” puzzle books. But what we most often did in family car trips was sing songs.

It’s a very unusual idea now to think of singing songs in the car, since the advent of in-car DVD players, MP3 players, and the GameBoy, but for little kids who don’t have the toys or aren’t interested in those things, some interaction with the family via singing in the car can be fun.

Rocky's Corn Maze
October 12, 2007

Three of Berta’s sisters came in from out of town to visit last weekend, and in trying to come up with something to do, we decided on a more seasonal activity - a corn maze.

Rocky’s Corn Maze is in Parkesburg, just before the end of the route 30 bypass. If you take the bypass to route 10, you’ll have to turn around and go about 300 yards. Look out for the small sign on the left side of the road, or you’ll zip right past it.

There aren’t many attractions at Rocky’s but the people are friendly. There were a few animals that you could feed, including goats, chickens, and pigs. And some other animals were there just to see, a horse, a donkey, and two baby calves that they fed milk from giant bottles while we were there. In all, not too fascinating for folks that are used to this kind of thing, but interesting enough for us suburbanites.

The hay ride was a slight disappointment, traveling only to a small deserted “pumpkin patch” seeded with fresh pumpkins that obviously didn’t grow there. But the main attraction was the amazing corn maze.

Someone Comes to Town
October 02, 2007

I really want to post my impressions of both BlogOrlando and Ohio LinuxFest, but they’re taking a long time to concoct, primarily because there was so much that happened. So for now, I would like to pose a question to all the locals and see if anyone’s got some good recommendations for me.

This weekend, three of my wife’s sisters and their husbands (plus one 1-year-old nephew of mine) are coming to stay for the weekend. This leads to the inevitable question: What will we do to entertain them?

BlogOrlando
October 01, 2007

My weekend was pretty action-packed. On Thursday night, I flew to Orlando to attend BlogOrlando, a “social media” unconference at Rollins College. I wish I could have flown in earlier, then I would have been able to attend the crazy pre-event events that everyone was raving about the next day, but that was not in the cards with all of the travel I had scheduled.

Friday was the day of the event, and I managed to show up early enough to catch the opening, which I didn’t know if I was going to be physically able to do, having been up until 3am the previous day with all of the airline mishaps.